“My name is shapla. My island is called east holdibari. It is in north West Bangladesh. When it floods here, some people go to the mainland. They have land or family there. But we don’t. so we have to stay behind. To me the river is painful because when the water level rises, the houses are flooded, our crops are destroyed and we run out of food. But the river also brings joy because when the water level goes down it gives us fertile land for our crops.” shapla is 11 and she is a confident and articulate girl, but as she explains what happened during the 2008 floods it is clear that it was a very frightening experience: “during the flood the water came up to here” – she indicates a point, at about shoulder level, on the wall of her home – “so we put rope around the bed and hoisted it up to the ceiling. I stayed up there with my brothers and sisters for seven days. For that time we had hardly any food and we were scared of snakes so some nights we couldn’t sleep.” After the flood, with Plan’s help, the holdibari Children’s group decided to create an action plan to prepare for future floods: “now we save some rice so we will have food if there is a flood. When the rice runs out we can use money from this money bank. This is carbolic soap. We break it up and hang it in the corners of the house to keep snakes away. I’ve just hung all these things up here so they don’t get wet when the floods come.”
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Plan
KEEPING THE SNAKES AWAY – SHAPLA’S STORY
shapla’s mother says: “I’ve learned a lot from the children’s group. shapla has even shown me how to hang a vegetable garden.” shapla says: “We have also designed a portable stove because it is hard to cook when there is a flood.” her brother adds: “My mum is making a stove from mud I have brought from the riverbank. she is mixing the mud with water and shaping it.” “I don’t fear the river,” says shapla, “but it takes a lot of things away from people and that’s what frightens me. If the river keeps on eroding we won’t be able to stay here any more. We’ll just have to move to another part of the island. We hope that the work of our group will keep children and families safe.”
Plan
shapla with family and friends.
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